You haven't played a lot of MUDs before, have you? Go take a look at huge MUDs like Achaea sometime. More content than you can shake a proverbial stick at. Player run towns, councils, guilds, political parties, factions, quests. It's really ridiculous what some MUDs have incorporated these days. Calling them "IRC with stats" is assanine.
Check out Andrew W.K. next time he comes to town (coincidentally, he's coming to the 9:30 club in D.C. tonight, and I'm going to be out of town). He has the most energetic performance I've ever seen. He was on DC101 this morning talking and openly said (paraphrased) "I have some stuff that's been released overseas only, but with the wonders of the Internet you can find it. Please, download any of my stuff you want, you have my blessing." His live shows just rock, people can get on stage, he rides around on other peoples' shoulders, croud surfs, everything. Never any problems either. He's just a cool guy to watch and listen to.
I said it was filled with blatant lies and half-truths. For instance, if I'm writing about how horrible Wheat Thins are, I could write "These little crackers, made from the grain grown by the working class farmer and his underprivileged household, contain 10 calories apiece! Over the course of a serving, that's almost 500 calories! No wonder Americans are getting fat!". Wheat Thins aren't terribly bad for you, the farmer is doing what he wants to do for his living and neither has anything to do with Americans getting fat, yet all statements are true.
You can mix up any words to build something that sounds more ominous than it really is.
This 'report' that you mention, written up on worldnetdaily is ridiculous. Overvly vague, it gives statements without backing them up and brings up numbers to justify its position without mentioning the numbers aren't BAD. For instance:
"The United States ranked first in private ownership of guns, resulting in drastic rise in gun-related crimes."
BS. We own a lot of guns because we're allowed to, it's in our Constitution and the vast majority of these people use guns responsibly. Outlawing guns does not make a society safer, it just moves guns into the black market.
"According to the outcome of a survey released by Washington D.C.Mayor Anthony A. Williams, 60,000 people out of the 600,000 population in Washington used drugs and indulged in excessive drinking"...and I'm proud to call myself part of that group. Excessive drinking is a damn right, as long as it's done in the safety of your own home.
"The jails nationwide receive 700 new inmates every week in the U.S. where 701 out of every 100,000 people are in prison"
That's.7%, and if they did the crime, they can do the time.
"According to a report by Amnesty International, more than 700,000 inmates were held in high security prisons and there they are compelled to stay in wards for 23 hours a day and even longer, subjected to ruthless and inhuman treatment and humiliation"
I assume they're talking about high-security lockdown, reserved for heinous crimes or prisoners who can't get along with the other prisoners and start fights or kill them. I say kill them off, but we keep them around and away from other people.
"Statistical figures from the Center for Responsive Politics showed that Lockheed Martin Corp., the country's biggest arms dealer.."
They're a DEFENSE CONTRACTOR! They design and produce weapons for the government.
An increasing number of US media organizations are getting involved in false reporting or cheating scandals. On June 5, 2003, two chief editors of the New York Times resigned after their role in a plagiarism scandal was exposed. John Barrie, head of Plagiarism.org in Oakland, California, claimed that "every newspaper in this country is not doing due diligence" and "everybody's got this problem".
This is isolated, at best. With the number of newspapers in this country, it's going to happen somewhere. Funny that China would talk about OUR press system when theirs is government owned...
"Certain policies of the US government, instead of helping narrowing the country's wealth gap, have aggravated the rich-poor disparity and led to an unfair distribution of wealth"
We live in a Capitalistic society, it's not the government's job to play Robin Hood.
Okay, I'm not even half way through this thing, and it's just packed with blatant lies and half-truths. Did you read this before posting?
I would love this as a poster in my home office/cube at work. Anyone know any resources for printing out the digital version WELL? I use Ofoto.com for most of my digital camera pics, but they only go up to 20x30...I'd really like full blown poster size. I've sent an email to Jerry asking permission, assuming he says "Go for it", does anyone know a good place online to go?
You are a) not a child, and b) probably not a woman.
My mom just got back from Disney last week, she goes every 1-2 years. My girlfriend is friggin obsessed with Disney stuff. I try to understand it as best I can, but I just can't. "It's a fantasy that they bring to life" is all I can get out of them. I would be bored stiff at DisneyWorld, but they have a blast just walking around seeing everything.
The closest I think most guys can come to understanding the Disney phenomenon (other than some of the movies which are, arguably, very good) is porn. Going to strip clubs mimics going to DisneyWorld, collecting Playboy/Hustler/Penthouse equates to collecting Disney paraphanalia. Watching porn doesn't really equate, but follow me anyways...it's all about the feeling that is created while experiencing it. Both get a euphoric "fantasy fulfilled" feeling from the experience of something that probably isn't going to happen in real life (I've never banged the pizza chick, who, coincidentally, had GG tits).
Disclaimer: I realize that not all guys like porn, just like not all chicks like Disney. Some girls like porn (my girlfriend for one), some guys like Disney.
Yes, it did, but it didn't revolutionize the gaming industry the way Doom did. Sound, dynamic lighting, sorta 3 dimensional movement (up stairs), game editor, player produced content, huge array of weapons/ammo, vastly different enemies, expansive levels, non-90 degree walls. Doom changed the way we looked at games, Wolfenstein was just fun and kinda new (first FPS that I had played).
I'd have to disagree with you, and another post further up said why. Before Doom, you didn't have...
1) The hardware rush. Computer games were designed to the hardware available, not vice versa.
2) A need for sound cards. Wolfenstein wouldn't have been the same, granted, but it was playable without a sound card, just like most other games. Doom practically required one just for the ambiance.
3) Game editors. No other game before Doom had even close to the amount of player created content. Maps, skins, hacks, you name it, Doom players built it.
"Parents, my plea to you...get involved with your kids. Watch what they're playing, regulate what comes in and out of your household. Get to know your childrens' friends, see how they interact, notice if they will be good or bad influences on them. Don't buy MA games and then be amazed when it disgusts you.
Game retailers, my plea to you...don't sell MA games to minors, id them first. Most kids have licenses by 16 and can't buy those games until they're 18 anyways. If in doubt, don't sell it to them...you're not losing that much money. And nobody will mistake a 13 year old for someone who's of age, so cut the 'I thought he was old enough' crap."
Good idea, smuggle him to his father's home planet. Why didn't Lucas create a couple more places?
While i haven't read Lucas' mind, I think the prevailing theory is that Obi-Wan hides him on Tattoine because the planet holds so many painful memories for Anakin that he'll never return to it. I do believe that we'll find out in Ep. III why, exactly, he does it.
The majority of "things" that start off good, have a good sequel, then keep going eventually end up sucking. I bring up the Ender's Game series as a perfect example.
Ender's Game was great on its own. I then read Speaker For the Dead and realized that Ender's Game paled in comparison, but was necessary to explain SFtD. Xenocide, however, sucked. All the books after it were pretty bad too, at least in comparison with the first two.
Star Wars is similar...I acknowledge the prequels aren't nearly as good as the OT, but I crave closure to this story that has been the prevailing epic in my life. I watched ANH on DVD last night (just bought them off eBay...good quality, for a LD rip) and just reveled in it...so much better, both acting and scripting, than the prequels.
Hasn't this already been done in Fallout? I know Achaea is a MUD and therefore realtime/MM/etc, but Fallout had a number of drugs that you could use, get boosts from, get addicted to and go through withdrawl from. Hell, two of the abilities you chose while rolling your character determined whether you were highly resistant or highly affected by drugs.
This is, IMHO, the wrong way to look at it. While it's true that your time was technically worth $.50/hr., you really can't calculate how much enjoyment you got out of it and how much that was worth. It's like my buddy who will pay, on average, $4/hr. for any entertainment...be it video games, sporting events, bars, etc, because he figures that the price of a movie is ~$8/2 hrs., and that's worth it to him. Did that video game you just bought for $50 give you ~12 hours of enjoyment? Then it was worth it. Considering that you probably enjoyed playing EQ, you could consider that $800 to be pure profit.
I actually live inbetween Centreville and Chantilly (20120), and this line looks like it's about a 30-60 minutes drive west of me. Still, should be a good, albeit brief, show tonight.
The sink is basically the whole game. It's the bank accounts, the player inventories, all the money that is used for trades and transactions among players.... When money goes out the bottom, it's deleted from the system, rather than circulating back to a central bank.
Having never played Galaxies, perhaps I'm speaking out my ass, but this doesn't sound like a money sink. The faucet-drain system implies that money is entering the system by being created ("minted"), but is also exiting the system by being destroyed or spent. Sitting around in inventories or banks does not destroy money. Paying NPCs to repair items, having items degrade over time, having "upkeep" (Inns, consumables like food/water), essentially "paying" the game to keep your character healthy, that's a sink.
Maybe I'm not understanding the Galaxies system. Does the game take 10% of every trade? Do your bank accounts get taxes? That was a wonderful system in Trade Wars, every day (if you were a good alignment player) you got taxed, just like in real life, and if you were bad alignment, you were safe...except for the ISS's roaming the galaxy that would blast you on site. Can anyone tell me a little more about the Galaxies economy? Now I'm all interested...
I don't think your analogy holds up. If the bum was suggesting that trickle down economics doesn't really work, then I would think the businessman would agree with him; not because the bum said it, but because it has been shown in practice.
Linux will only become pervasive in the US after companies have seen other companies make it work (and make it work better than Windows) and be profitable. Once it's proven itself, adoption by US companies should be easier...at least to newly formed companies. Some existing companies are still using mainframes, so I doubt they're going to be switching over to "The Next Big Thing".
A well documented piece of code is easy to read, no matter what algorithm you are using. I'd rather someone figure out the most efficient way of doing something, then document *exactly what they did* than write something up, quick and obvious, that isn't documented. I can usually read through code and get the general gyst of what they're doing, no matter how complicated it is *.
--trb
* Perl doesn't count, you HAVE to consider readability with Perl or else even a seasoned veteran will get lost.
You can consider these the first generation of this technology. Just like CDR drives, they'll drop in price eventually, and improve along the way. Never, unless you have extra money in your budget for the year, buy a first generation technology...it's like paying extra to be a beta tester.
By the time you've reached a certain level, IMHO college, I think that a regular ol' calculator (read: not something with memory) should be allowed on most exams. I say this mainly because I remember the frustration of messing up a simple calculation that then led me down the wrong path. Should I be able to do a simple calculation? Yeah, but during a test you're stressing and rushing and I can understand screwing up and adding or forgetting a negative sign.
Calculators with memory, though, should just not be allowed...I'll admit to putting in every single physics equation I ever came to, and my calc is possibly the only reason why I got through "Signals and Systems (Networks II)" in college.
Unfortunately, graphing calculators were invented. They're the bane/saviour for many an engineer, since they allow you to get away with an awful lot when you're pressed for time, but they allow many people to skip out on the fundamental lessons of geometry. Personally, I used them in school but not before I had a firm grasp of triginometric principles, ie, I memorized sin-cos-tan tables and could figure things out on paper sans calculator.
I'm amazed these days at what kids use calculators for. My buddies fiance is student teaching a class of 8th graders and says that for simple *addition*, kids are breaking out their TI's. Really, if you can't add 96 + 48 within a few seconds in your head, you've got issues. Graph paper is going the way of the dodo, unless you're an electrical/computer engineer, then you take stock in engineering pad companies.
There've been many, MANY "Ask Slashdots" and the like about what college classes to expect, and the overwhelming majority agree with the parent...that is, college classes don't really teach you anything other than how to think, and they're useful to weed out people that are just lazy. Advanced data structures and maybe the basics of an OS are about as much as you can hope to learn, as far as practical programming goes. Using your technical electives wisely is a must...I took a comparitive languages class that, while not terribly useful, allowed me to gain some additional respect with the "old timers" (read: over 40) that I was working with by being able to intelligently talk about langauges no longer in wide circulation. People who come out of school without having done additional programming on the side are going to be in for a shock...and will probabaly move up to management post haste because they won't have the necessary skills to program efficiently.
Amen. Don't think programming takes too much math? Try writing a game, any game. I was writing up a Rogue clone and got around to path finding. The number of algorithms to use are just sick, and they're all math intensive. Not so much algebra/trig stuff, but the spatial relations stuff is all math based.
Other programming...calculating and distributing load, memory management, all math based. If you ever write anything with sound or electricity (lots of embedded stuff), it's all math based.
Many CS majors will enter the work force only to do data moving programming (ie, take form input, store, retrieve, repeat). However, even those sytems have to have somebody load balancing them which gets into timing and...well, we all know how it goes. Math isn't just a filler class in a CS majors curriculum.
--trb
Re:Cone of Silence? More like cone of annoyance.
on
Directed Sound
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· Score: 2, Insightful
While I agree that this would suck, it could have benefits. Anything used for spamming receives a *LOT* of funding...this sort of technology could mature very, very quickly because of its revenue stream, leading to other, more practical uses. Remember, if it weren't for pr0n, we would prolly still be surfing on 28.8 modems, not broadband.
Slashdot Mirror
You haven't played a lot of MUDs before, have you? Go take a look at huge MUDs like Achaea sometime. More content than you can shake a proverbial stick at. Player run towns, councils, guilds, political parties, factions, quests. It's really ridiculous what some MUDs have incorporated these days. Calling them "IRC with stats" is assanine.
--trb
99% true, but that 1% is worth it.
Check out Andrew W.K. next time he comes to town (coincidentally, he's coming to the 9:30 club in D.C. tonight, and I'm going to be out of town). He has the most energetic performance I've ever seen. He was on DC101 this morning talking and openly said (paraphrased) "I have some stuff that's been released overseas only, but with the wonders of the Internet you can find it. Please, download any of my stuff you want, you have my blessing." His live shows just rock, people can get on stage, he rides around on other peoples' shoulders, croud surfs, everything. Never any problems either. He's just a cool guy to watch and listen to.
--trb
I said it was filled with blatant lies and half-truths. For instance, if I'm writing about how horrible Wheat Thins are, I could write "These little crackers, made from the grain grown by the working class farmer and his underprivileged household, contain 10 calories apiece! Over the course of a serving, that's almost 500 calories! No wonder Americans are getting fat!". Wheat Thins aren't terribly bad for you, the farmer is doing what he wants to do for his living and neither has anything to do with Americans getting fat, yet all statements are true.
You can mix up any words to build something that sounds more ominous than it really is.
--trb
This 'report' that you mention, written up on worldnetdaily is ridiculous. Overvly vague, it gives statements without backing them up and brings up numbers to justify its position without mentioning the numbers aren't BAD. For instance:
...and I'm proud to call myself part of that group. Excessive drinking is a damn right, as long as it's done in the safety of your own home.
.7%, and if they did the crime, they can do the time.
"The United States ranked first in private ownership of guns, resulting in drastic rise in gun-related crimes."
BS. We own a lot of guns because we're allowed to, it's in our Constitution and the vast majority of these people use guns responsibly. Outlawing guns does not make a society safer, it just moves guns into the black market.
"According to the outcome of a survey released by Washington D.C.Mayor Anthony A. Williams, 60,000 people out of the 600,000 population in Washington used drugs and indulged in excessive drinking"
"The jails nationwide receive 700 new inmates every week in the U.S. where 701 out of every 100,000 people are in prison"
That's
"According to a report by Amnesty International, more than 700,000 inmates were held in high security prisons and there they are compelled to stay in wards for 23 hours a day and even longer, subjected to ruthless and inhuman treatment and humiliation"
I assume they're talking about high-security lockdown, reserved for heinous crimes or prisoners who can't get along with the other prisoners and start fights or kill them. I say kill them off, but we keep them around and away from other people.
"Statistical figures from the Center for Responsive Politics showed that Lockheed Martin Corp., the country's biggest arms dealer.."
They're a DEFENSE CONTRACTOR! They design and produce weapons for the government.
An increasing number of US media organizations are getting involved in false reporting or cheating scandals. On June 5, 2003, two chief editors of the New York Times resigned after their role in a plagiarism scandal was exposed. John Barrie, head of Plagiarism.org in Oakland, California, claimed that "every newspaper in this country is not doing due diligence" and "everybody's got this problem".
This is isolated, at best. With the number of newspapers in this country, it's going to happen somewhere. Funny that China would talk about OUR press system when theirs is government owned...
"Certain policies of the US government, instead of helping narrowing the country's wealth gap, have aggravated the rich-poor disparity and led to an unfair distribution of wealth"
We live in a Capitalistic society, it's not the government's job to play Robin Hood.
Okay, I'm not even half way through this thing, and it's just packed with blatant lies and half-truths. Did you read this before posting?
--trb
I would love this as a poster in my home office/cube at work. Anyone know any resources for printing out the digital version WELL? I use Ofoto.com for most of my digital camera pics, but they only go up to 20x30...I'd really like full blown poster size. I've sent an email to Jerry asking permission, assuming he says "Go for it", does anyone know a good place online to go?
--trb
You are a) not a child, and b) probably not a woman.
My mom just got back from Disney last week, she goes every 1-2 years. My girlfriend is friggin obsessed with Disney stuff. I try to understand it as best I can, but I just can't. "It's a fantasy that they bring to life" is all I can get out of them. I would be bored stiff at DisneyWorld, but they have a blast just walking around seeing everything.
The closest I think most guys can come to understanding the Disney phenomenon (other than some of the movies which are, arguably, very good) is porn. Going to strip clubs mimics going to DisneyWorld, collecting Playboy/Hustler/Penthouse equates to collecting Disney paraphanalia. Watching porn doesn't really equate, but follow me anyways...it's all about the feeling that is created while experiencing it. Both get a euphoric "fantasy fulfilled" feeling from the experience of something that probably isn't going to happen in real life (I've never banged the pizza chick, who, coincidentally, had GG tits).
Disclaimer: I realize that not all guys like porn, just like not all chicks like Disney. Some girls like porn (my girlfriend for one), some guys like Disney.
--trb
Yes, it did, but it didn't revolutionize the gaming industry the way Doom did. Sound, dynamic lighting, sorta 3 dimensional movement (up stairs), game editor, player produced content, huge array of weapons/ammo, vastly different enemies, expansive levels, non-90 degree walls. Doom changed the way we looked at games, Wolfenstein was just fun and kinda new (first FPS that I had played).
--trb
I'd have to disagree with you, and another post further up said why. Before Doom, you didn't have...
1) The hardware rush. Computer games were designed to the hardware available, not vice versa.
2) A need for sound cards. Wolfenstein wouldn't have been the same, granted, but it was playable without a sound card, just like most other games. Doom practically required one just for the ambiance.
3) Game editors. No other game before Doom had even close to the amount of player created content. Maps, skins, hacks, you name it, Doom players built it.
--trb
"Parents, my plea to you...get involved with your kids. Watch what they're playing, regulate what comes in and out of your household. Get to know your childrens' friends, see how they interact, notice if they will be good or bad influences on them. Don't buy MA games and then be amazed when it disgusts you.
Game retailers, my plea to you...don't sell MA games to minors, id them first. Most kids have licenses by 16 and can't buy those games until they're 18 anyways. If in doubt, don't sell it to them...you're not losing that much money. And nobody will mistake a 13 year old for someone who's of age, so cut the 'I thought he was old enough' crap."
Like it's THAT hard...
--trb
Yeah, no, the release date is 19 May 2005.
--trb
Good idea, smuggle him to his father's home planet. Why didn't Lucas create a couple more places?
While i haven't read Lucas' mind, I think the prevailing theory is that Obi-Wan hides him on Tattoine because the planet holds so many painful memories for Anakin that he'll never return to it. I do believe that we'll find out in Ep. III why, exactly, he does it.
--trb
The majority of "things" that start off good, have a good sequel, then keep going eventually end up sucking. I bring up the Ender's Game series as a perfect example.
Ender's Game was great on its own. I then read Speaker For the Dead and realized that Ender's Game paled in comparison, but was necessary to explain SFtD. Xenocide, however, sucked. All the books after it were pretty bad too, at least in comparison with the first two.
Star Wars is similar...I acknowledge the prequels aren't nearly as good as the OT, but I crave closure to this story that has been the prevailing epic in my life. I watched ANH on DVD last night (just bought them off eBay...good quality, for a LD rip) and just reveled in it...so much better, both acting and scripting, than the prequels.
--trb
Hasn't this already been done in Fallout? I know Achaea is a MUD and therefore realtime/MM/etc, but Fallout had a number of drugs that you could use, get boosts from, get addicted to and go through withdrawl from. Hell, two of the abilities you chose while rolling your character determined whether you were highly resistant or highly affected by drugs.
--trb
This is, IMHO, the wrong way to look at it. While it's true that your time was technically worth $.50/hr., you really can't calculate how much enjoyment you got out of it and how much that was worth. It's like my buddy who will pay, on average, $4/hr. for any entertainment...be it video games, sporting events, bars, etc, because he figures that the price of a movie is ~$8/2 hrs., and that's worth it to him. Did that video game you just bought for $50 give you ~12 hours of enjoyment? Then it was worth it. Considering that you probably enjoyed playing EQ, you could consider that $800 to be pure profit.
--trb
Amen. Who left this feature on by default? It took me 10 minutes of playing before I realized that my tv wasn't THAT crappy...
--trb
I actually live inbetween Centreville and Chantilly (20120), and this line looks like it's about a 30-60 minutes drive west of me. Still, should be a good, albeit brief, show tonight.
--trb
The sink is basically the whole game. It's the bank accounts, the player inventories, all the money that is used for trades and transactions among players.... When money goes out the bottom, it's deleted from the system, rather than circulating back to a central bank.
Having never played Galaxies, perhaps I'm speaking out my ass, but this doesn't sound like a money sink. The faucet-drain system implies that money is entering the system by being created ("minted"), but is also exiting the system by being destroyed or spent. Sitting around in inventories or banks does not destroy money. Paying NPCs to repair items, having items degrade over time, having "upkeep" (Inns, consumables like food/water), essentially "paying" the game to keep your character healthy, that's a sink.
Maybe I'm not understanding the Galaxies system. Does the game take 10% of every trade? Do your bank accounts get taxes? That was a wonderful system in Trade Wars, every day (if you were a good alignment player) you got taxed, just like in real life, and if you were bad alignment, you were safe...except for the ISS's roaming the galaxy that would blast you on site. Can anyone tell me a little more about the Galaxies economy? Now I'm all interested...
--trb
I don't think your analogy holds up. If the bum was suggesting that trickle down economics doesn't really work, then I would think the businessman would agree with him; not because the bum said it, but because it has been shown in practice.
Linux will only become pervasive in the US after companies have seen other companies make it work (and make it work better than Windows) and be profitable. Once it's proven itself, adoption by US companies should be easier...at least to newly formed companies. Some existing companies are still using mainframes, so I doubt they're going to be switching over to "The Next Big Thing".
--trb
A well documented piece of code is easy to read, no matter what algorithm you are using. I'd rather someone figure out the most efficient way of doing something, then document *exactly what they did* than write something up, quick and obvious, that isn't documented. I can usually read through code and get the general gyst of what they're doing, no matter how complicated it is *.
--trb
* Perl doesn't count, you HAVE to consider readability with Perl or else even a seasoned veteran will get lost.
You can consider these the first generation of this technology. Just like CDR drives, they'll drop in price eventually, and improve along the way. Never, unless you have extra money in your budget for the year, buy a first generation technology...it's like paying extra to be a beta tester.
--trb
By the time you've reached a certain level, IMHO college, I think that a regular ol' calculator (read: not something with memory) should be allowed on most exams. I say this mainly because I remember the frustration of messing up a simple calculation that then led me down the wrong path. Should I be able to do a simple calculation? Yeah, but during a test you're stressing and rushing and I can understand screwing up and adding or forgetting a negative sign.
Calculators with memory, though, should just not be allowed...I'll admit to putting in every single physics equation I ever came to, and my calc is possibly the only reason why I got through "Signals and Systems (Networks II)" in college.
--trb
Unfortunately, graphing calculators were invented. They're the bane/saviour for many an engineer, since they allow you to get away with an awful lot when you're pressed for time, but they allow many people to skip out on the fundamental lessons of geometry. Personally, I used them in school but not before I had a firm grasp of triginometric principles, ie, I memorized sin-cos-tan tables and could figure things out on paper sans calculator.
I'm amazed these days at what kids use calculators for. My buddies fiance is student teaching a class of 8th graders and says that for simple *addition*, kids are breaking out their TI's. Really, if you can't add 96 + 48 within a few seconds in your head, you've got issues. Graph paper is going the way of the dodo, unless you're an electrical/computer engineer, then you take stock in engineering pad companies.
--trb
There've been many, MANY "Ask Slashdots" and the like about what college classes to expect, and the overwhelming majority agree with the parent...that is, college classes don't really teach you anything other than how to think, and they're useful to weed out people that are just lazy. Advanced data structures and maybe the basics of an OS are about as much as you can hope to learn, as far as practical programming goes. Using your technical electives wisely is a must...I took a comparitive languages class that, while not terribly useful, allowed me to gain some additional respect with the "old timers" (read: over 40) that I was working with by being able to intelligently talk about langauges no longer in wide circulation. People who come out of school without having done additional programming on the side are going to be in for a shock...and will probabaly move up to management post haste because they won't have the necessary skills to program efficiently.
--trb
Amen. Don't think programming takes too much math? Try writing a game, any game. I was writing up a Rogue clone and got around to path finding. The number of algorithms to use are just sick, and they're all math intensive. Not so much algebra/trig stuff, but the spatial relations stuff is all math based.
Other programming...calculating and distributing load, memory management, all math based. If you ever write anything with sound or electricity (lots of embedded stuff), it's all math based.
Many CS majors will enter the work force only to do data moving programming (ie, take form input, store, retrieve, repeat). However, even those sytems have to have somebody load balancing them which gets into timing and...well, we all know how it goes. Math isn't just a filler class in a CS majors curriculum.
--trb
While I agree that this would suck, it could have benefits. Anything used for spamming receives a *LOT* of funding...this sort of technology could mature very, very quickly because of its revenue stream, leading to other, more practical uses. Remember, if it weren't for pr0n, we would prolly still be surfing on 28.8 modems, not broadband.
--trb